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| Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering Trump’s ill-fated “reverse-Kissinger” gambit in Belarus, and the value of engaging with U.S. servicemembers who are being deployed domestically. | But first, here’s our take on today’s top story: |  | Smoke rises from an Israeli army bombardment in the Gaza Strip, seen from a memorial site for Israelis killed in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Oct. 7, 2025 (AP photo by Ohad Zwigenberg). |
| Vivian Silver kept the courage of her convictions right until her death. The Israeli peace activist was at her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters swept through after crossing the border from nearby Gaza. According to a New York Times account of her final hours, Silver took shelter in a safe room, where she did a radio interview and insisted that the attack underscored the urgent need for a peace deal. | Afterward, she spoke on the phone with her son, Yonatan Zeigen, to whom she expressed frustration at the interviewer’s dismissive attitude. Zeigen recounted to the Times that he could hear gunfire and militants shouting in the background. They hung up and switched to text, and Silver told him there were men inside the house. | “I’m with you,” Zeigen wrote. “I feel you,” Silver replied. Those were the final words Zeigen received from his mother, whose remains were subsequently found in what was left of the safe room. The militants had set her house on fire. She was among roughly 1,200 Israelis killed that day, with 251 more taken hostage. | In the days and weeks after the attacks, Zeigen refused to let the loss of his mother become justification for a war of revenge. “Force only brings more death,” he told the British broadcaster Channel 4. “Dead babies in Gaza won’t heal our dead babies. The only way to move forward is with peace.” | Two years later, at least 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, parts of which have been stricken by famine due to Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the territory. Meanwhile, Zeigen has continued to preach a message of peace. In an interview this week with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he said Oct. 7 “should have been a very strong wake-up call to us all, to understand that a reality of prolonged war and violence will only breed more violence.” He also spoke of feeling “heartbreak, frustration, but also hope. We’re in an interesting phase now, and there seems to be an opportunity here. So, I’m on the edge of my seat.” | Indeed, there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. In response to a recent 20-point proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump to end the two-year war, Hamas has agreed to release the remaining 48 hostages it holds—20 of whom are believed to be alive—even as it seeks changes to other elements of Trump’s plan. Hamas and Israeli negotiators are in Egypt this week for talks mediated by Egyptian and Qatari officials, in an attempt to agree on details including the logistics of the hostages’ release and the timing of a ceasefire. | There is no guarantee of success, given the deep mistrust between the two sides. Indeed, it was only a few weeks ago that Israel bombed a building in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in an attempt to kill senior Hamas officials there. | Yet ironically, it was that attack that opened the door to a meaningful round of negotiations. Israel’s decision to strike Qatar days after Hamas had received a new ceasefire proposal from the U.S. infuriated Trump and prompted him to turn up the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a meeting in the Oval Office on Sept. 29, he handed Netanyahu a phone receiver and demanded he call Qatar’s prime minister to apologize. | Not only that, Trump reportedly insisted that Netanyahu accept his 20-point plan as written, with few revisions. While the document calls for Hamas to be disarmed and for Gaza to never again pose a threat to Israel, it also allows for amnesty for Hamas fighters who lay down their and requires unhindered humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, overseen by the U.N. Those provisions—as well as the guarantee that Palestinians in Gaza will not be forcibly displaced—are anathema for Netanyahu and his far-right coalition. That Israel was still forced to accept this framework shows the U.S. is finally willing to use some of its substantial leverage against Netanyahu. | Of course, even if the parties agree to a ceasefire, the road to a lasting peace would be long and strewn with obstacles. But conditions are more favorable now for an end to the war than at any point since Oct. 7, 2023. | | Today’s Daily Review is provided to you, in full, by our sponsor, Morning Brew. To get the full version every day, subscribe now. | Your career will thank you. | | Over 4 million professionals start their day with Morning Brew—because business news doesn’t have to be boring. | Each daily email breaks down the biggest stories in business, tech, and finance with clarity, wit, and relevance—so you're not just informed, you're actually interested. | Whether you’re leading meetings or just trying to keep up, Morning Brew helps you talk the talk without digging through social media or jargon-packed articles. And odds are, it’s already sitting in your coworker’s inbox—so you’ll have plenty to chat about. | It’s 100% free and takes less than 15 seconds to sign up, so try it today and see how Morning Brew is transforming business media for the better. | Check it out | | Every so often, Washington rediscovers Belarus’ long-ruling President Alexander Lukashenko and decides “Europe’s last dictator” might be persuadable—even useful as a wedge against Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Presidents from both major parties have tried to seize opportunities to peel Lukashenko away from Putin’s orbit, never with much success. Trump is now trying again: His envoy John Coale has met with Lukashenko and engineered the release of dozens of political prisoners. But as Candace Rondeaux writes, Trump is seeking to manufacture leverage where none exists by courting a dictator whose economic, military and political survival depend entirely on Moscow’s goodwill. | | | Many civilians in the U.S. rightly oppose the deployment of troops to their cities. But it matters a great deal how they protest these servicemembers’ presence. That in turn depends on whether civilians view the troops themselves as inherently complicit with Trump’s policies, or whether they see each servicemember as a potential ally in the effort to uphold constitutional norms and protect American civilians’ rights, WPR columnist Charli Carpenter writes. | | | On Monday, the Andean Community, a trade bloc that includes Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, found that Peru is failing to uphold its commitments to prevent illegal gold mining and mercury trafficking, giving the country 20 working days to do more or potentially face trade sanctions. | Six years ago, under then-President Martin Vizcarra, Peru launched a militarized campaign to eliminate illegal gold mining, going so far as to declare a state of emergency in March 2019 that empowered authorities to aggressively pursue illegal miners and suspended some constitutional rights. However, as Matthew C. DuPee wrote at the time, the effort did not devote adequate resources to address the scale and scope of illegal mining in Peru. | | | Syria’s new government has agreed to an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Syria’s defense ministry said Tuesday. The U.S.-backed SDF, which controls a quarter of Syria’s territory, had recently clashed with forces loyal to interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led a rebel offensive that ousted former President Bashar al-Assad late last year. | In an in-depth piece for WPR in March, Francisco Serrano examined the complicated post-Assad security landscape in Syria and the challenges of bringing together the country’s various armed factions under a united government force. A deal with the SDF is critical for the new government, he wrote, since the SDF controls much of northeastern Syria’s critical infrastructure, including “airports, border crossings and perhaps most importantly oil wells.” | | | The United States has lifted sanctions against former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes and several of his companies. The sanctions had been imposed over allegations of obstructing a transnational criminal investigation and other acts of “rampant corruption.” As Gregory Ross wrote in WPR last year, Paraguay’s path to economic growth has been undermined by weak rule of law, and its “democratic institutions remain mired in local networks of patronage and corruption.” | | Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged U.S. President Donald Trump to remove steep tariffs on Brazilian exports to the United States in a call yesterday that Lula’s government characterized as “friendly.” However, the source of tensions between the U.S. and Brazil go deeper than Trump’s tariffs. They extend to disagreements over the conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro and, as James Bosworth wrote in July, to a larger and longer-term contest for regional influence. | | More from WPR | Freddy Deknatel on the limitations of the Genocide Convention exposed by the war in Gaza. James Bosworth on the familiar problems with the latest U.N. Haiti mission. Adam Day and Alex Costy on the U.N.’s role in building a regional framework to end the war in Gaza. Paul Post on why Trump’s bailout of Argentina is not as unusual as it seems.
| Read all of our latest coverage here. |
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